Daily Roundup: February 26. We want to hear from you!
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse; Max Stier; Jen Rubin with Susanne Craig & Russ Buettner; Nick Anderson; Carron J. Phillips; Rep. Ritchie Torres talks to Jen Rubin; and Jennifer Weiss-Wolf.
Good evening Contrarians,
Friends, we want to hear from you! How have you seen your community pushing back against the despotic Trump-Musk regime?
Whether it's through protests, town halls, placards, stickers, or graffiti, if it's anti-authoritarian, we want to see it. The power of the people is greater than the people in power.
Please put your images in the comments below or send them to submit@contrariannews.org, to potentially feature in our new section on the Democracy Movement we’re seeing nationwide. Check in every weekday for updates and inspiration from your fellow Americans.
Recapturing the Supreme Court for the people
The first cases testing Trump’s overreach are lapping at the steps of the Supreme Court.
By Sheldon Whitehouse
The Department of Government Ineptitude
Elon Musk's DOGE team is violating every basic principle of good management.
By Max Stier
Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, and Jen Rubin on Trump's financial feints
Jen Rubin joins Pulitzer Prize winners and co-authors Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner to explain how Trump 2.0 could be predicted by studying his lifelong business strategy of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’.
FDR and Churchill
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist whose cartoons have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and elsewhere. Find him on Substack at nickanderson.substack.com.
The Philadelphia Eagles are willing to visit Trump’s White House (deep sigh)
It used to mean something when championship teams declined Trump. That was then, this is now.
By Carron J. Phillips
Congressman Ritchie Torres and Jen Rubin discuss the government spending bill
Yesterday, the House passed a budget bill that includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. Congressman Ritchie Torres and Jen Rubin discuss how this bill poses to get rid of essential services such as Medicaid, SNAP, and student loan assistance programs.
Trump’s Executive Order on IVF is Full of Red Flags
The administration’s latest statement on reproductive rights is a Trojan horse for future harm
By Jennifer Weiss-Wolf
I (and my students) have just become one of the victims. I am a professor at MIT and was just told that my research contract with the VA was cut "for convenience" as of yesterday. I was doing research on providing safer healthcare. I have grad students who now are in deep trouble financially, and I don't know how to help them pay their tuition and live. I am not alone, 875 other contracts were also cut, so it is not personal and has nothing to do with the quality or importance of our work. I guess it is more important for billionaires to get a tax cut than that our veterans get safe healthcare.
Hello There! I am feeling like I am getting some real news coverage with the Contrarian. One thing that is hard to get out of my mind that is missing: Trump's diplomatic ineptitude was on full display at the UN this week, bending his knee to Putin. But was it really just ineptitude? Since taking office a little over a month ago, Trump appears to have taken Putin's wish list and, not only did he fulfill it, he gave more than Putin could have dreamed of. Weakening NATO, verbally attacking our allies, threatening to take over Greenland, weakening the Defense Department, weakening the CIA, weakening the FBI, blaming Ukraine for Russia's invasion, and in the past handing secrets over to Russia, trusting the word of Putin over the US intelligence service and of course I could go on. For me, Trump's play at the UN was showing his hand, in card playing parlance. There is no way that there isn't something of a diabolical nature going on between Putin and Trump. Blackmail, money laundering, payoffs, loans...He cannot possibly be acting in such a treasonous manner because he has such admiration for another lawless leader. Trump doesn't do anything without there being something in it for him. And as an added bonus for Russian Intelligence, I’ve not seen any evidence that Trump has anything resembling a moral compass. If a person with Trump's history had applied for a security clearance during the Biden Administration, there isn't a chance that he'd get even the lowest clearance. He would be too easy to blackmail. A past debt, a future Trump Tower? All that to say, I wish that the Contrarian would dig deep, really really deep, to find out what is going on here. Because whatever it is, there is no doubt in my mind that we have a Russian Asset sitting in the White House. And I expect that his sidekick Elon Musk's actions and intentions are not intended to be in the interest of the US either. It is hard for me to imagine that Musk is not doing espionage work while he destroys the heart of the US financial, health, social security, systems. That being said, digging into Elon Musk's background would surely lead to some interesting, and terrible, revelations as well.